Water is not kind to cars, particularly when you dunk them in it for long periods of time. Whenever a vehicle gets dragged out of a body of water after years beneath the surface, it’s always interesting to see how well it survived.
That’s exactly what happened in Greeley, Colorado this week. As reported by the Greeley Tribune, a Jeep Patriot was recovered from the depths of a lake in Sanborn Park on Wednesday.
Thanks to the fine efforts of the Water Rescue Team at the Greeley Fire Department, the stricken Jeep was wrested from the waters and returned to dry land. Despite apparently being submerged for several years, the vehicle came out remarkably intact.
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The vehicle was apparently first discovered by a member of the public. According to Greeley Police Department (GPD), the agency received a tip on Tuesday with an satellite image of the lake. The image appeared to show a vehicle submerged in the water, prompting further investigation.
GPD then enlisted the aid of the Greeley Fire Department on Wednesday to retrieve the vehicle. The Jeep was located approximately 85 feet off shore. The department’s dive team was able to attach a tow line to the vehicle where it lay on the lake bed. Once hooked up, a local tow truck from Fortress Towing was able to drag the vehicle from the water.
We don’t get a look at any license plates in the photos and videos published by Greeley’s emergency responders. However, we can see from the images that it’s a post-facelift Patriot, based on the smaller fog lights in the front bumper. This indicates that it was built anywhere from the 2011 to 2017 model years. We can also speculate—without being certain—that it ran prior to sinking, given it was found 85 feet offshore. With that said, there is quite a hill leading to the lake front, so it’s plausible that it may have rolled that far under gravity alone.
According to police, the Jeep Patriot was reported stolen in 2017. Given that date, the vehicle was still relatively new when stolen, and it may have been underwater for as long as eight years.
At the same time, it’s not clear exactly when it may have been dumped in the lake at Sanborn Park—as this may have occurred some time after the original theft. Based on the thick layers of mud and detritus on the vehicle, it seems likely the vehicle has been under water for several years at the very least.
Impressively, the Jeep’s tires all appeared to be somewhat inflated after the recovery. Only minor damage to the body is evident on the left fender, and all the windows were intact. It’s unclear how much water entered the cabin, but one would suspect it flooded completely after complete submersion. While some air can remain trapped inside, most vehicles tend to flood pretty quickly—they’re a long way from watertight, after all.
Unfortunately, the vehicle will most likely serve as evidence, then head to the crusher in short order. After all, any insurance due to the owner of the stolen Patriot would long have paid out. Still, it’s fun to think about the possibilities of trying to resurrect that poor Jeep after so long underwater. If only one were in Colorado…
Image credits: Greely Police Department, Greeley Fire Department
Nothing beats a Merco !
https://youtu.be/86EZZ0ZrHnE
Sorry if you listen to the video some random citizen found it, the first responders called a tow truck to haul it out. Frankly 911 was 000 in this job. But kudos to civilian reporting and commercial towing for doing everything but the phone calls.
As an Australian yes, 911 is 000. 🙂
Interestingly, that thing probably still smells better than Greeley in general often does.
The deaf Greeley residents get all hot and bothered when we sign the city name like one would pinch their noses with index finger and thumb at the mawkish odour.
I never forget the first visit to Greeley for the demolition derby. As we turned from I-25 toward Greeley, the stench hit us so hard, and we questioned whether we ought ditch the whole plan. We braved on and attended the derby, which was the most unforgettable automotive experience for me.
Greeley is a weird town. I wouldn’t put it past a drunk college kid a cow or slaughter house operator to be involved.
Or an illegal immigrant
Yeah there is often a tent city around the JBS plant kinda sad
That one was for David; this one is for Jason, a 1957 VW Samba 23-window in Chestnut Brown and Sealing Wax Red (yes, official paint color names) that was sunk in a lake in Norway (according to some reports they simply pushed it out onto the ice so it’d sink when the ice melted) in 1973 and salvaged in 2009:
https://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/67766
They got it running again with a new drivetrain (seems they were actually able to use a few bits & pieces from the original engine) to drive around at a Norwegian VW show:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=372048&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=300s
Paging David Tracy…
It’s a Jeep (kind of).
It’s cheap.
It’s been submerged in water for years and is probably 51% rust at least.
God himself does not want this thing to run.
When you’re done playing with your forsaken taxicab, do your Patriot(ic) duty and return this thing to the road.
I’ve seen worse condition Patriots ON THE ROAD.
They were turds when new, so it really couldn’t get much worst from there, even if it’s submerged under water for 8 years. If anything, the water helped preserve it.
Doesnt look rusty enough for David
Only if it was saltwater…
David is now going to dip all of his cars into salt water for an extended period before working on them.
I mean, it is an amphibious exploring vehicle, so it should be fine
A couple days ago in Oregon they tried to fish out a 1954 Ford station wagon that had been sunk in 1958 in connection with a mysterious disappearance. The chassis bolts were badly enough rusted that they gave way and they only pulled out the frame, but there were intact-looking wide whitewalls on it. No clue whether they held air pressure since the only pics I can find show it hanging in midair from the crane.
There was also that late ’70s Continental fished out of a retention pond in Georgia earlier this year, belonging to an elderly couple from New York missing since the early ’80s. That one crumbled to a jumble of twisted rust from the rear axle back when they tried to pull it out by the bumper, then completely collapsed into a mostly unrecognizable pile of metal by the time it was pinched onto the flat bed
Pretty sure there was some salt content in that water, based on the geography
I guess you don’t have to worry about 8 years of road salt corrosion when you’re on the bottom of a lake
What do you call one Jeep patriot at the bottom of a lake? A good start.
I like a good sense of humor from the public sector, but this goes so far, I start to wonder if they didn’t plant it as a training exercise.
Also, Greeley is pretty well known for the cattle industry, including airborne fecal matter and runoff, so I’m not even going to speculate what’s in the muck at the bottom of a stagnant retention pond.
Some years ago I had a special work assignment to a small town about an hour’s drive from the city where I live (travel time and mileage reimbursement, yay!) Part of the route that got me there was a 2-lane country road with a bridge over a narrow stream running through cow pastures on either side of the road.
I liked to say I literally crossed Shit Creek to get there.
If they planted it as a training exercise, they’d probably say that. Usually they try to spin those as “look at us doing these crazy things to save you! Please fund our budget increase.”
Oh sure, a logical but crappy observation!
Fresh water is honestly a pretty good preserver. Great Lakes shipwrecks last in very good shape for a long time (The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times…)
COLD, deep fresh water has very, very little oxygen in it, so the critters that like to eat organics are not present. But in general, fresh water is a much slower dissolver of things than salt water. And as the Titanic shows, cold deep salt water is VERY good at harboring organisms that find iron very tasty. Titanic’s sister, Britannic, is only 400 feet deep in the Med and is in FAR better condition, despite having sunk only a few years later (WWI mine).
Yeah, Britannic is shockingly intact, even the thin sheet metal funnels are still there, and those things tended to rust out to almost nothing after 30 years on the surface
Look at all those lakes and rivers in Eastern Europe where they find tanks from WW2 that start up after a bit of coaxing.
Fellas, it’s been good to know ya’
There’s some air in the tires on the wheels on the Jeep on the bottom of the lake . . .
The tires are the things on your car that make contact with the…seabed?
There’s a name on the lien for the loan at the bank who filed docs with UCC when payments stopped in 2012 for the Jeep with the air in the tires at the bottom of the lake.
oh no now it’s stuck in my head
In your heeeeead!
Send it to Larry at AMMO NYC and let him get some content for his YouTube channel out of it first.
It looks surprisingly good for a ~10 year old Patriot, full stop.
It was preserved by protecting it from Patriot buyers for a whole decade.
If I was unfortunate enough to find myself owning a Patriot, I’d probably drive it on to thin ice, let it fall through, and report it stolen too.
They may have been underwater on their car loan.
Greeley, located in Weld County (huh), is a pretty interesting place. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of it, but man are there a few nuggets of trivia there…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeley%2C_Colorado
you can smell Greeley FAR before you see it.
It’s not as bad as it used to be, thanks to the growth the whole area has seen. I remember a time when you could joke about smelling Greeley from I-25 and not being sure if it was actually a joke or not.
That was always a joke well-grounded in truth – and still is. During the warmer months you can often smell Greeley from Loveland (several miles beyond I-25).
I’ve been there a number of times, I have an oil company client with a datacenter there.
Greeley has a fantastic model railroad museum, so actually one of my favorite places to visit.
https://www.cmrm.org/
Under Stellantis ownership, Jeep has been at the bottom of a lot of things.
CarLoss Tavares?
ex-CEO of Stillaimless
Ran when sunk.
“I know what I’ve got!”
If it had been a Hilux, they could have driven it out of the lake.
I genuinely believe that if this were a TG-era Hilux, it could have started after draining and re-lube-ing the drivetrain.
I assume David Tracy has already been alerted. After all, it is the worst Jeep model and should be sent to the crusher. So, it is right in his sweet spot.
I’m a little surprised they didn’t put it right back in the lake after seeing that it was a Patriot.
It look in better shape that most of the road today. 🙂
“I have 10 days to get this flooded Jeep ready for Moab” — David Tracy
“Part of this project will be swapping in a non-running Dauntless V6 that is currently in a reader’s rotted CJ-5 three states away…”
That I also purchased 🙂
Along a ’93 Ford Ranger to haul it back. I didn’t want the Ranger, but it was part of the deal. Since it would need brakes before hitting the road, I assembled a basic tool kit and hopped a flight to Oaklahoma City.
They are all holy grails. 🙂
I was surprised that David Tracy didn’t write the article!
First Gen Patriot > First Gen Compass. So 2nd worst Jeep model.
Let’s not get carried away with wild speculation like that.
Hearty chortle at this one.